


Watch the Sky

by TMar



Category: Alien Nation, Quantum Leap
Genre: Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 08:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16364009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TMar/pseuds/TMar
Summary: Sam must make sure the Newcomers (Tenctonese) land on Earth.





	Watch the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the personal, private amusement of the author. I never even intended to post it, but what the hell.

Sam found himself sitting at a very sophisticated console with lots of  
buttons, screens and lights. He frowned at it, but inwardly he was  
relieved that this time he hadn't leapt into a gunfight or any of the  
other unusual situations he'd previously found himself in. 

He squinted at the console for a while before it finally began to  
make sense. It was a console linked to an orbital telescope by the looks  
of things, and it was doing routine scans of the stars, and measuring the  
sky. Sam wondered why it needed to be manned if it was automated, as it  
appeared to be; then he decided that he was probably there to oversee  
more than one console...

He looked around; this seemed to be borne out by the fact that there  
were many computers and screens in the room, but he was the only person  
there. He looked at the console again, but didn't see anything out of the  
ordinary, so he got up and took a look at each of the other consoles in  
turn. None of them seemed to be showing anything out of the ordinary  
either, so, shrugging, Sam sat back down.

"Sam!" Sam started, looking around for his holographic partner. "Al!  
Do you have to keep doing that?"

Al smiled. "You know, Sam, at first I did it because I couldn't  
knock, but now I think I'm starting to enjoy it."

"You would. Why am I here?"

"Ziggy says there's a very faint trace of something approaching  
Earth's position."

"A comet?"

Al shook his head. "Not a comet. Ziggy just accessed all the  
information from this telescope, and she says that it's an alien ship."

"Why didn't anyone notice it before now? I mean, before Ziggy?" Sam  
looked a trifle confused as he tried not to mix his tenses. Not that such  
a thing mattered when one was dealing with time travel, of course.

"Ziggy says no one paid much attention last time. Apparently this  
astronomy student you've leaped into thought it was a glitch and didn't  
say anything, and no one picked up on it."

"Oh come on, Al. No one noticed? They must have looked at the data!"

"Do you have any idea how much data places like this receive from  
these orbital telescopes? Little spots on star maps could be a printing  
error or something."

Sam shook his head. "I don't believe that."

"Yeah, well..." Then something struck the observer. "Maybe they only  
noticed it after the ship was gone."

"If it's a ship," replied Sam.

Al ignored that comment to fiddle with the hand link. "Ziggy says  
you have to get permission to send a transmission directly to it."

"IF it's a ship," Sam said again, sarcastically. This time Al  
couldn't let it pass. "What do you mean, if? You saw a UFO, heck, even  
I saw it! They exist, Sam!"

"Yes, they exist. I'm just saying I'm not sure if this is one of  
them."

"Well unless you tell somebody, you'll never find out." He opened  
the door of the Imaging Chamber. "I'm gonna go back and see if Ziggy has  
any more information. Call someone up and tell 'em."

"Who?"

"Just dial 5 on the phone and say you have an unaccountable blip on  
monitor two." The door closed, and Sam did as requested.

***

The next few hours were a flurry of activity as everyone appeared and  
made calculations. This time, they were definitely sure that something  
was out there. "This is a Code Three clearance," said Adams, the head of  
the observatory. "No information leaves this room, do you people  
understand?" He looked hard at Sam. "You can't tell anyone."

Sam nodded, feeling numb. 

"Davis, you plot the data as it comes off the computer, okay? Check  
EVERYTHING."

It wasn't until Adams said, "Davis?" that Sam realised the man was  
talking to him. "Uh... yeah. Okay."

"We've gotta get someone to give us the go-ahead to signal that  
ship."

"IF it's a ship," said Sam, then wished he hadn't, as everyone  
turned on him, looking angry. "Uh... I'm just saying we should keep an  
open mind."

"Of course," said Adams, going out to call the higher-ups.

Sam plotted all the figures that the computer gave him, and was into his  
third hour of doing it when Al arrived. "Sam, why are you still doing  
this? You should have sent a message hours ago!"

Sam looked around, but no one was paying him any attention. "I  
can't, Al," he whispered. "No one has given permission."

"You can't wait. That ship will pass us by in four hours unless they  
know we're here."

"What are you talking about?" asked Sam.

Patiently, Al began to explain. "Ziggy has accessed all the  
information you people have collected. She says that ship is in trouble,  
and if they can't land on Earth, whatever things are on that ship will  
die."

"So we must let them know we're here..." mused Sam.

"Yes! Exactly."

"I'm here to save those... aliens... whatever, then?"

"By sending a message that tells them there's a habitable planet to  
land on."

Sam decided not to rain on Al's parade by saying that if there WERE  
aliens on the ship, there was no guarantee that they'd be compatible with  
Earth's environment. He knew, too, what the mathematical probabilities  
were for the evolution of life in the universe... he'd always believed  
there WAS life out there, but he still wasn't sure that anyone on Earth  
would want to have to face aliens, or even contact them. Believing that  
humanity was alone in the cosmic sea was much easier for some people to  
handle. "I dunno, Al," he finally said. "It doesn't seem like something  
anyone would authorise."

"If they don't, you'll have to do it."

"Me? Al, I can't do that!" Sam got up in protest just as Adams came  
back in. "Well?" asked everyone almost in unison.

Adams shook his head. "Everyone wants to contact the ship, but no  
one, not even the President, will give the go-ahead to do it. They're  
scared."

"They should be," said someone else.

Sam stepped forward. "Come on, this isn't a bad science fiction  
movie, you know. This is IT. We have to send a message."

"Do you know what could happen if these things turn out to be  
hostile? We will get the blame for bringing them here."

"This isn't 'Invaders from Mars', for goodness' sake!" yelled Sam.  
"We have to do it."

"I agree," said Adams finally. "But we have to do it so that we can  
deny it later if we have to."

"How?"

"I know," Sam said suddenly. "We don't send a message as such. All  
we do is move one of the broadcast satellites a degree or two so that the  
ship picks up the transmissions."

"And people in Australia lose their satellite feed."

"Well, hey, we were trying to reach the telescope and messed up a  
bit," said Sam.

"No one will believe that," said one technician.

"What if that ship gets 'Friday the 13th' or 'Star Trek' reruns?"  
asked another, and both Sam and Adams smiled. Then the man turned around.  
"Let's do it. We only get one shot. Davis..."

"Yeah?"

"You punch in the coordinates. Ten seconds, that's all."

"I'm sure it'll be enough," responded Sam, doing as instructed.  
"Okay, here we go. Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five..." When  
Sam got to three, the hand link began to make very loud noises, and Al  
whacked it. "Sam, you did it! Now, the ship crash lands in the Mojave  
Desert and a quarter of a million aliens become American citizens!"

"What?" asked Sam.

"Yeah. And the women are really... sexy!" added Al, but Sam wasn't  
listening, because he leaped.

THE END


End file.
